


A How-To Guide On Making Friends (100% Success Rate!)

by serpentineshadows



Series: One Piece YouTuber AU [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - YouTube, Developing Friendships, First Meetings, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Luffy Being Luffy, POV Monkey D. Luffy, Platonic Relationships, YouTuber Monkey D. Luffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24977188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentineshadows/pseuds/serpentineshadows
Summary: Luffy is going to be the King of YouTubers, but first: he's going to be friends with Nami. Zoro gets roped along.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Nami, Monkey D. Luffy & Roronoa Zoro, minor Monkey D. Luffy & Roronoa Zoro & Tony Tony Chopper, minor Nami & Roronoa Zoro
Series: One Piece YouTuber AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807930
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	A How-To Guide On Making Friends (100% Success Rate!)

**Author's Note:**

> i have wanted to write a youtuber au for a while after watching sarah baska and thinking "that's how luffy would be if he had a youtube channel"....unfortunately, rl got in the way and it took me a while to decide: should this be set in canon but just more modern? should this be a total modern au?? my solution: welcome to my modern setting but ppl can still have powers au + youtube. think not the op world, but a world like the one in hunterxhunter (less ocean, more landmass).
> 
> note on the formatting: the indented parts are going over the video representation of the previous events; non-indented parts are the actual events. hopefully, that makes it less jarring, and if this does not make sense, i think it'll become clear once you read

The earliest videos on Strawhat Luffy’s channel showcase the complete and utter chaos that follows in Luffy’s wake in all its rough, unedited glory. There is no Usopp to interject between shaky footage to craft a narrative. There is no Nami to edit the content into something watchable and add in her own snarky commentary. In some of the earliest videos, there is no Zoro to tag along with Luffy’s (frankly) insane shenanigans. There is only Luffy, and the endless amount of trouble he can get himself into.

This iteration of the Strawhat channel is not quite popular, not in the explosive way that it is in later years. But there is an audience to watch in slightly fascinated horror at a boy foolishly launching himself off a roof, after asking the camera “do you think I can try flying?” The footage is unedited, and the cameraman inexperienced, so the video shows the sky, the concrete scenery, whipping by alarmingly fast with only the wind as a loud companion. When the impact finally comes, the video goes black, there is a groan of disappointment, and the audience can see how high the roof is relative to the ground, at last.

It is a frightening height for a boy to walk away from completely unharmed, but that is precisely what Luffy does, so there is a general consensus among the audience that Luffy must be some sort of magical, especially with the amount of near-death experiences he has previously inflicted upon himself. This is basically confirmed in the next video, titled “my brothers are mean!!”, where two boys (who only make an appearance via their hands) pull at Luffy’s face as it stretches and stretches and shows no sign of stopping. It’s one of the few videos from these early ones that shows some sign of editing: Luffy doesn’t show the part where his brothers inevitably let go and his face snaps back into place; whether or not he consciously made the choice to not include this part is unknown. It merely ends with Luffy complaining to the camera, his cheeks red, presumably some time after his brothers have finished teasing him. (There is a pinned comment from Luffy himself that clarifies “my brothers are fine!! no need to worry about me :)” when too many of the comments critique his brothers for their cruel treatment. There will always be those who are skeptical of Luffy’s brothers, but most will be convinced that they truly care for Luffy in later videos.)

So Luffy is able to achieve some sort of viral success from his random crazy stunts as a teenager, especially once Zoro starts making an appearance, but he doesn’t truly begin to build a large audience and maintain his popularity until he meets Nami. Nami quickly becomes one of the backbones of the channel, after Luffy and Zoro, because she adds expertise. A polished edge that Luffy’s videos were missing up until then. The video that marks Nami’s introduction to the channel starts like this:

The footage is shaky, and the angle is an unflattering view of Luffy’s face as always. “Hey, guys, I’m Monkey D. Luffy, and I’m gonna be the KING of this coffee shop!” The view switches to what is presumably a coffee shop (unclear enough that all that can really be seen is a blurry building) before there is a dizzying switch back to Luffy’s face. “Zoro wanted me to get coffee for him before I start bothering him today,” is the only explanation given.

As Luffy bounds in the coffee shop, the view of his face and the clear sky bounce in time with his footsteps. Luffy ends up crashing into someone, seeing as the camera goes tumbling and the video shows the ground coming terrifyingly close to the lens. Usually, the video would show Luffy’s fumbling, the other person’s reaction, everything that the camera records while it’s still on. This one, however, is different.

* * *

Luffy blinks down at the girl he’s bumped into. Her coffee’s spilled all over her laptop bag and her stylish outfit. Luffy’s lucky that none of it has gotten on him, and his camera’s safe.

“Not even gonna help?” the girl snaps as she looks over her laptop. She must deem it fine because she switches to glaring at Luffy, like he’s the source of all her misery.

“Oops, sorry about that,” Luffy laughs, unrepentant, and offers her a hand. She slaps it away and picks herself up. She stares Luffy down with an expectant look: intimidating, the way that Dadan tries to be sometimes, despite the mess staining her shirt.

“Well?” she demands again. “I don’t have all day, and you’re blocking the entrance.” She nods towards the line that’s been steadily forming behind Luffy.

“Oh,” Luffy says. She must be the type of person that doesn’t like voicing what they want: somewhat of a pain for Luffy to deal with, but usually, these types of people find him equally painful, if not moreso.

It must take Luffy too long to figure out what she wants because she suddenly grabs his arm and drags him into the shop, all the way up to the counter. “Pay for my refill,” she tells him, before giving the cashier her order and stomping away.

“Anything else you want?” the cashier asks, distracting Luffy from watching as the girl grabs a handful of napkins from a table and starts (futilely) wiping at her belongings.

Luffy successfully orders Zoro’s drink and obtains both of his orders by the time the girl has given up on salvaging her outfit. “About time,” she sighs when Luffy hands her the drink and takes one of the largest gulps he’s ever seen (and that’s really saying something, considering he’s competed with Ace and Sabo to see who can drink a gallon of milk the fastest—of which there may or may not be slightly disgusting video evidence). She must have killed all her taste buds, but there’s no sign of pain on her face. Luffy decides he kind of likes her, even if she chose a roundabout way of letting him know what she wanted from him in the beginning.

“I really needed that,” she says, finally setting down her coffee cup next to her laptop bag. It looks really light, like she’s consumed all of its contents already. “Today’s really sucked so far.”

“Sorry about that…oh yeah, hey! What’s your name?” Luffy didn’t even notice she was relaxing until now, with her defenses back up. Her shoulders are incredibly tense as Luffy keeps talking. “Shishishi, I guess don’t tell me if you don’t want to, but I’m Luffy!” He points at the camera that’s been hanging from his neck for a while now. “I’m gonna be the KING of YouTubers!”

That gets a muffled snort from the girl. Maybe it’s meant in a mean way, but Luffy chooses not to think of it like that. He doesn’t know her at all, but he has the same gut feeling that he did with Ace, Sabo, Zoro, and all the other precious people in his life: she’s going to be his friend.

“Are you sure about that?” she asks, and hm, the smirk on her face is evil. “I’ve never seen your face before.”

Luffy is undeterred. “Well, now you have!” The girl looks nonplussed, a reaction Luffy is very, very familiar with. It also reminds him of how funny that expression is on Zoro’s face whenever it happens, which reminds him about how he’s supposed to meet Zoro. Luffy originally left early enough that Zoro wouldn’t be that far into his workout routine so that Zoro would be more willing to play along with Luffy’s shenanigans, but with this unplanned interaction, he’ll probably have to run all the way to Zoro’s house to make it on time.

“Bye, coffee girl!” he throws over his shoulder as he dashes out of the coffee shop, almost bumping into someone else on the way out. (He’s long gone by the time Nami processes what’s happened and takes offense to being called “coffee girl.”)

For the Strawhat channel's standards, the transition between Luffy almost dropping the camera and the next scene is of a higher quality than usual. The next scene shows almost none of Luffy and Nami’s interaction except for a terrible angle of Nami, which mostly shows her stained shirt and the lower half of her face, as she reacts to Luffy’s declaration that he’s “gonna be the KING of YouTubers!” The video freezes on a blurry image of Nami smirking as a voiceover starts. The narrator is female, her tone dry as she says: “Hi, Nami here. And this video is going to be about how I met the two biggest meatheads I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, and why you guys are going to be seeing much more of me from now on. Enjoy!” Then, there is a tasteful montage of Luffy’s prior footage, as an intro song plays in the background.

Luffy spends that afternoon talking to Zoro about his encounter with coffee girl. While Zoro listens attentively (as he always does), he isn’t as enthused as Luffy is.

“Doesn’t seem like she’s anything special,” is Zoro’s only comment as he trains and trains and trains in his backyard. Luffy’s sprawled out on the grass, eyeing the utter blueness of the sky. His camera is angled towards Zoro because a lot of his audience prefer the visual of Zoro’s training to the sky, and that’s an easy thing to do.

“She is!” Luffy’s only justification is his gut, which Zoro should understand because that’s the sort of reasoning he uses sometimes as well. “We’re all gonna be friends.”

“Uh huh,” Zoro says, as he does another rep. “And how’s that gonna happen if you don’t even know her name? Or if you’re ever gonna meet her again?”

Zoro is being irrationally reasonable (something that happens occasionally, like an illness—even though, as Ace says, “idiots don’t get sick”). However, Luffy supposes Zoro is right in one way: if all of them are going to be friends, Zoro and coffee girl have to meet somehow. While Luffy believes that it _will_ happen (eventually, even if he doesn’t do anything), he’s also a believer in making things happen.

When Luffy looks back at Zoro, Zoro has set his weights down and is looking back at Luffy with a horrified expression on his face. It’s one that has become familiar over the years, mostly whenever Zoro has his bouts of being reasonable and Luffy has a plan.

“Oh, no,” Zoro says. “We _are_ going to be friends with her.”

This is Luffy’s logic. He met coffee girl at a coffee shop, and it wasn’t a chain store. Her day sucked, even though it barely started. She will return to the scene of the crime eventually. Therefore, the best way to meet her again is to…

“Go to the restaurant closest to it?” Zoro sounds horribly skeptical, but Luffy’s confident he’ll be convinced. Luffy’s dealt with Zoro being…reasonable enough to know how to solve it. “Why not just stake out the coffee shop?”

Luffy scrunches his face up into an expression that he hopes conveys to Zoro how much he disagrees with his suggestion. “She’ll be back in this area! She was having a bad day! Food solves all problems! So she’ll come here!”

“Can’t she get food from the coffee shop?”

Luffy’s face stays resolutely judgemental. “But what about meat?”

Zoro has nothing to say in response, which means Luffy has won him over. The waitress stops by at their table and starts unloading a veritable banquet. Their tiny table is already full by the time ten out of many, many dishes have been set down.

“Huh,” she says. “I’m sorry, I should’ve realized.”

“It’s okay,” Luffy tries to say as he begins stuffing his mouth with food. The waitress looks vaguely horrified, and maybe a little disgusted, and then downright terrified when Luffy’s cheeks begin to bulge unnaturally. Luffy’s camera records the whole encounter as the waitress notices that a majority of the plates on their table are already empty and seems too shell-shocked to respond. “Can you just leave the cart here?”

Zoro repeats what Luffy said, like a parrot, which finally spurs the waitress into motion. When she backs away, Luffy briefly looks back at Zoro before he goes back to examining the food they still have left. “Aren’t you gonna eat anything?”

In response, Zoro steals one of Luffy’s chicken legs and chomps down on it. Luffy’s ingrained response is to snatch it back, but he reminds himself that there is still a lot of food left.

“Hey, Luffy,” Zoro says, as he takes a sip of his beer before grabbing one of the onigiri. “Did you remember to bring your wallet?”

Luffy doesn’t stop eating. “You’re paying,” he declares, as he reaches to grab a steak from the cart.

Zoro spewing beer all over the empty plates between them is a little gross.

The video skips most of Luffy’s riveting story of their first encounter because Nami claims it’s “incomprehensible.” Instead, it tends to show Luffy and Zoro’s conversations where Zoro responds more to Luffy’s statements. (“People will eat up your chemistry!” Nami insists, and Luffy trusts her without quite understanding what she means. It just reminds him that he’s hungry.)

When the video reaches the part of the footage where Luffy and Zoro, but mostly Zoro, realize that neither of them have their wallets, large white text appears over a black background. It reads: “DISCLAIMER: this channel does not condone dine-and-dashing! Luffy and Zoro (eventually) got help and paid.”

The video switches back to the restaurant footage, which includes a(n incomprehensible) conversation that occurs as the dishes continue to disappear. It culminates in Zoro nearly trying to break the glass in order to leap out the window before Luffy mentions they both have phones. The video hangs onto Zoro’s face, which so clearly reflects his consternation, longer than Zoro argues is strictly necessary. (“Do you _want_ to earn money from this video?” Nami asks, and Zoro doesn’t know what to do except complain under his breath.) Cue them frantically calling everyone on their contact list (with a cameo from Luffy’s phone, covered in food residue) until a disappointed (and blurred-out) Makino shows up to solve their food woes.

“Bring your wallet next time, okay,” she suggests as the two boys slink out of the restaurant with her.

“23:02 wow she’s not even saying this to me and i felt guilty” is one of the top comments on the video.

Luffy and Zoro end up visiting that restaurant enough to be considered regular(ly terrible) patrons by the time Luffy meets coffee girl again. Luffy has even resorted to staking out the coffee shop even though he doesn’t see the point, and Zoro starts to get a little crazy after downing his fifth cup of coffee. (Zoro on caffeine is a terror, but whenever Luffy says that to someone, they always look at him weirdly, like it’s hard to believe or something.) The one silver lining: Luffy gets to say “I told you so” to Zoro when they inevitably get banned from the coffee shop, and there is actual clear footage of Zoro’s disgruntled face.

Despite Luffy’s proactiveness, they’re only able to obtain content for his YouTube channel instead of a friendship. And Luffy doesn’t even want to post that content yet until he secures the friendship because he has a vision for this particular video, and that vision happens to be “how to make friends.” He wasn’t able to do anything like that with Zoro because their initial and multiple subsequent meetings weren’t recorded, so this is his chance to share his awesome friendship-making skills with his audience. (“They’re going to be wowed!” Luffy says to Zoro’s disinterested “uh huh.”)

By the time a month has passed, it’s been a while since Luffy has uploaded to his YouTube channel, and that is a Problem. To be the King of YouTubers, Luffy needs to post content. So, he goes over to Zoro’s to brainstorm content that’s not make-friends-with-coffee-girl-related.

Eventually, they settle on visiting a new restaurant that’s been opened by a Fishman. Luffy’s been watching their promotional content on YouTube lately, and it always makes him hungry. (Luffy is very thankful for all the food-related content on YouTube, like the Baratie’s channel, but he also wishes he could taste the food through the screen. He has tried, and computers don’t taste good.)

(In retrospect, Luffy will receive a lecture from Sabo, who will come bursting back from whatever shady place he’s gone to, with a nasty bruise across his face—which totally completes the older brother hypocrite look Sabo’s always going for!)

Luffy is not disappointed when they get to Arlong’s Park (well, he is a little…because the name of the restaurant reminded him of amusement parks). There’s a greeter out front, his arms crossed and face stern like he’s a bodyguard. But more importantly, he’s got weird fin-things sticking out of his elbows.

“That’s so cool!” he whispers to Zoro, gesturing at the Fishman’s arms.

“Welcome,” the Fishman says, still frowning. “Table for two?”

They’re led inside and directed towards a table by a different muscular Fishman. This time, he’s blue and his lips stick out a lot. He asks them if they need any drinks, reacts extremely belatedly when Luffy asks to order one of everything on the menu, so overall: seems like a pretty cool guy.

Luffy says as much to Zoro, but Zoro’s scanning the whole restaurant like the skeptical guy he is. “There’s not a lot of people here,” Zoro observes. It’s true, and most of them are dressed all fancy, in suits. The music playing is classy, but loud enough to drown out all the conversations these businessmen must be having.

“Eh, probably magic discrimination,” Luffy says. He pulls out his camera and gives a sweeping view of the restaurant. He points to the back, where there’s a window into what’s happening in the kitchen: the cook is probably an octopus Fishman because he has _eight_ (eight!!) arms.

“Right,” Zoro agrees, but he doesn’t stop glaring at everyone around them, especially the Fishman with the sharpest nose Luffy has ever seen that’s coming towards them.

“Hi, I’m Arlong,” he says, when he reaches their table. “I welcome you to Arlong’s Park.” His smile is full of the sharpest teeth Luffy has ever seen. “But I ask you to please stop recording, or leave this establishment.” He flexes, probably threateningly.

“Hi, I’m Luffy!” Luffy sticks out his hand, but Arlong doesn’t take it. Rude. “And I’m gonna be—”

Zoro slaps his hand over Luffy’s mouth, which doesn’t hurt but is also rude. “Yeah, sure, look we’re sorry—”

Luffy pries Zoro’s hands off his face and wraps his arm around Zoro’s head to cover his mouth. “What’s so bad about recording? We’re just here to review the food!”

Arlong is looking specifically at the way Luffy’s arm is stretching—unnaturally, and clearly a sign that Luffy’s magical. “‘Review’ the food, huh?” Arlong is now cracking his knuckles menacingly while repeating Luffy’s statement like an idiot. “Is that what we’re calling it these days?”

Luffy has no clue what Arlong is trying to say, but Arlong leans uncomfortably close, his sharp nose digging into Luffy’s, when he yells, “Get ‘em, boys!” His breath is rancid, which almost distracts Luffy from how all the people in the restaurant are pulling out weapons ranging from guns to swords (like Zoro, the weirdo!), all aimed at them.

Zoro has finally shifted from disgruntled yet resigned to bloodthirsty and eager to wreak some havoc, so Luffy lets him go and dodges the strong punch Arlong unleashes. The restaurant descends into chaos as Luffy grabs at one of the overhanging lights in order to swing himself across the room and Zoro wrestles a sword away from one of the goons to start hacking at random.

Luffy’s destination is the kitchen because he’s still hungry, and he yells this to Zoro, briefly glancing to where Zoro is mowing down men in suits before clashing with the guy with weird arm fin-things. Meanwhile, Arlong is trying to chase Luffy, so Luffy takes that as his cue to hurry and leaps into the kitchen.

He narrowly avoids the knife that gets thrown at him, and when he gets to his feet, the octopus Fishman is armed with six knives. The more important thing Luffy notices is this: coffee girl is standing behind the octopus Fishman, slack-jawed. 

“Hey, it’s you!” he says at the same time that she growls, “What are you _doing_ here?”

There’s no time to chat, though, because Arlong bursts in right then, trying to get between Luffy and food, and also Luffy and friendship. Overall, seems like a pretty bad guy. So, Luffy decides to take up Arlong on his challenge, but first: he proceeds to gobble down everything in sight. Everyone else in the room seems to be a mix of flabbergasted and disgusted, but Luffy is used to that, so he throws a punch at Arlong and the octopus Fishman while both seem distracted. The kitchen will probably be ruined, Luffy laments, but at least Luffy was able to salvage some of the food beforehand. Once Zoro arrives with a bang, with two more swords on him, Luffy _knows_ the kitchen won’t survive.

He notices coffee girl taking advantage of the chaos to sneak away, but there’s not much he can do about that when Arlong throws him across the room with way more strength than Luffy expected.

The video condenses the hours and hours of Luffy and Zoro waiting around in restaurants and coffee shops as a montage. At the end of the montage, most of the footage from the fight at Arlong’s Park is included, but all of the angles are bad and everything is blurry. (Luffy’s entire brand up to that point, really.) All that can really be gathered is that the fight was utter chaos.

Then, the video segues into a section that displays various newspaper articles that came out about the incident. The headlines range from neutral (“Arlong’s Park Destroyed In Fight, Exposed For Bribing Officials”) to inflammatory (“Reckless YouTuber ‘Strawhat Luffy’ DAMAGES Property, Faces NO Repercussions?”), and together, they paint a vague picture of the fallout of the fight. Luffy stumbled upon a corrupt business and ended up in a fight: a little hard to believe, but not too strange for the types of shenanigans Luffy likes to get into.

Luffy and Zoro are over at Dr. Hiriluk’s, under Chopper’s disappointed supervision, as all these new articles come out. It’s the most popular his YouTube channel’s ever been, featured on mainstream media, even if a lot of the outlets are overwhelmingly negative. So, Luffy can’t quite help smiling about the whole thing, even as Chopper grabs his own antlers in distress. (Luffy doesn’t quite get why Chopper does that, but he’s familiar enough with Chopper to know it means he’s stressed.)

“No! Lie back down,” Chopper snaps immediately as both Luffy and Zoro try to sit up for what feels like the millionth time that morning. “The fastest way to recover is rest.”

“But I’m bored!” Luffy pouts, but it doesn’t seem to earn him any sympathy points. Chopper will be a good doctor one day, probably. He just has to learn how to improve his bedside manner.

“You say that every time,” Chopper huffs, crossing his arms. Maybe he’s trying to look stern, but he’s too small to effectively pull off a threatening look, especially because he’s more annoyed than angry right now. “Maybe if you remember how _bored_ you get, you two will stop injuring yourselves!”

Luffy does laugh at that, which makes _everything_ hurt. “If you say so, Chopper!”

Chopper’s in the midst of grumbling about Luffy’s dismissive response when there’s a knock on the door. Luffy perks up while Zoro stays still, as per Chopper’s earlier orders (he totally has a soft spot for Chopper, even if Chopper doesn’t notice it). It might be Ace, or Sabo, which could be fun because he hasn’t seen either of them in _forever,_ but also…they would totally lecture him while he’s bedridden, so not fun. Luffy’s still deciding how he feels about Ace or Sabo visiting when the door opens, and Dr. Hiriluk appears.

Luffy slumps back down into the bed. Time for another boring checkup.

“You two have a guest,” the doctor says, opening the door wider, and Luffy sits up so fast, everything hurts so much worse. But it’s worth it because he sees the orange hair behind Dr. Hiriluk, and no one in his life has orange hair except for Dadan and— 

“Coffee girl!” Luffy exclaims. He starts to climb out of the bed, but the withering look Chopper sends his way is _scary._ It’s the look Chopper reserves for when he’s angry, especially when reckless patients are involved (not that Luffy knows anything about that). “How’d you find out we were here?”

“I have my ways,” she says, all mysterious, and Luffy knows they _have_ to be friends. There’s no other way this interaction can go. “Anyway, my name is Nami, not coffee girl.” She pulls up a chair and drops into it, gracefully. “Because of you, I no longer have a job.”

“Oh, that sucks.”

“That it does,” Nami agrees, and she’s twirling a strand of her hair. Her posture screams casual, which Luffy has learned means she is probably not relaxed as she seems. “I remember when we first met, you said something about being a YouTuber?”

“Yep, I’m gonna be the king!”

“Uh huh,” Nami says, and she’s got the disinterested hum down pat already. She smiles, and it’s sharp, like Zoro’s precious swords. “How do you feel about hiring me as an editor?”

“I don’t trust this woman,” Zoro cuts in before Luffy can agree. He’s all grumbly, not even looking at Nami and the stormy expression growing on her face as he continues, “Why’s she jumping ship so fast?”

“Because,” Nami starts, her voice steady but so, so threatening. She stands up from her chair and leans over Zoro so that he’s forced to look at the scary might of her grin. “ _Someone_ lost me my job, and _someone_ is in desperate need of a quality editor. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, okay?”

“Okay,” Luffy agrees enthusiastically, drowning out Zoro’s complaints. “So, we’re friends now!”

It’s Nami’s turn to try and reject what’s being offered, but today is the day she starts to learn: with Luffy, everything is an uphill (and in the end, losing) battle.

None of this encounter was recorded, so usually, with Luffy’s channel, that would end with the video ending abruptly. Pure chaos, from start to finish. However, Nami is actually editing the video, so even though there’s no footage, she summarizes (and leaves out the little details about) their encounter.

The video ends with an actual outro: a first for the Strawhat Luffy channel. At the end, Nami adds one final comment: “I’m the cameraman in our upcoming videos, so you guys might actually be able to tell what’s happening for once! Thanks for watching —Nami”

* * *

Out of the countless videos that have been posted on Luffy’s channel up until this one, none of them blow up as much as this one does. It’s perhaps a combination of Luffy’s usual appeal (absurd shenanigans), the inside look into a newsworthy incident, and the promise of better quality. Perhaps it is because the vomit-inducing way Luffy chooses to hold the camera at all times is not as off-putting when someone actually edits the unbearably shaky footage into a comprehensible storyline.

Either way, the Strawhat Luffy channel only manages to surpass previous videos with each upload from the crazy shenanigans to the quality camerawork and editing. Nami’s introduction is only the catalyst.

**Author's Note:**

> edit 7/12/20: messed around w/ html&css and made the time stamp text blue....  
> 2020 has been wild so far, but this is a fanfiction site so all i'll say here is: make sure to pay attention to what's going on in the world & help where you can!!
> 
> i also can't believe the absolute meltdown that's going on around yt rn...and finding out that a yter i watched consistnelty a couple years ago is Not the good guy he seemed to be..yikes! so even though this is a yt au, i don't plan to uh emulate what's going on in the yt world rn. this is a Happy Vibes only place (...mostly). i have a wholeeee background doc on more things i might wanna write in this setting, so if muses & free time cooperate, i'll punch out a few more of these (no guarantee on the eta being soon tho, i am not over haikyuu's most recent chapters & might be in a haikyuu phase for a while lol). lmk your thoughts/questions if you have them in the comments!


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